Atish Bagolah: Teaching others how to speak up

Intelligent, zealous and ebullient, Atish Bagolah is an emerging trainer. He is someone that will bring the best in you and help you to achieve success. He is a young man who is keen on helping others in recognising their inner potentials while also revealing their weaknesses. 

31-year old Atish Bagolah started his professional career as an educator for around one year, then he joined the department sales and marketing in the pharmaceutical field. He worked with multinational companies like GlaxoSmithKline, Lundbeck and AbbVie. “After completing my meta-coaching certifications, I set up my own coaching and training company called Metaspeaking which is a coaching company unique on its own,” he reveals.

According to him, metaspeaking is a technique invented by him to help people achieve their potentials as an accomplished speaker. “Many training institutions offer public speaking training to teach the skills for public speaking. Yet, even after having completed the course, most – if not all – participants still have self-confidence issues for public speaking. Many join Toastmasters International as members in the hope to improve their speaking skills. Yet, most still suffer from ‘speaking constipation’, learning only skills and not building up as a strong speaker or presenter. Metaspeaking is a technique offered solely by me to speakers, professionals, executives, salespeople, managers, CEOs, amongst others, to solidly make people find their speaking aura, style, signature and zone.”

Enhancing one’s skills 

He offers various types of training like public speaking coaching, body language coaching and meta-coaching infused inside the trainings. He argues that with the advent of technology, people find time to send messages using their mobile phones but no time to stand besides or in front of people to speak. “More than ever in human history, we need to build up people to face the public. Think about why many young graduates fail interviews? Why many high potential people miss opportunities inside their companies? Why people are hesitant to ask questions inside a meeting with their direct up line? The unfortunate area of focus is that trainers are only showing people skills used in days gone by. The people of today are different. We need to use specific coaching and training aptitudes to unleash the talented speaker in each person.”

He believes that every person is a unique individual and every one can follow the same public speaking training. “Each person has a unique personality and so, each person needs to know on which level they are lacking the skills. Some people may have issues with their vocal variety or body language while others may have the need to develop their ideas or use their space to speak. Think about why in the certain Miss Mauritius or such contests, some of the young women speak well while others still face problems. Yet, all of them are talented. There is a specific coaching skill that needs to be used to direct the non-resourceful states into resourceful states.” 

Emerging as a good leader 

For his training, he uses many meta-coaching Neuro-Semantics tools and Neuro-Linguistic Programming knowledge to make speakers find themselves and then align to unfold their ultimate best. “Sometimes the best leaders are the young people. How you would encourage them to step forward and what should they bear in mind once they start playing the role of a leader? The biggest risk is not taking any risk. Not planning is planning to fail. Risk and planning are the two most amazing mind-sets that a young leader needs to breed. It is not about age or experience that matters most, so much as building on iron-curtain willpower.”

He highlights these four main things important to emerge as a young leader:

• Intention to step forward
• Meaning of the intention to be clear
• Understanding risk
• Believe in the plan.

For Atish, once a person starts playing the role of a leader, he should have a balanced emotional intelligence. “It is astounding to see that coaching culture is not yet ingrained in the mind of young professionals. It is paramount to have a coach next to your side in the background for a young leader. I have a paid coach for myself, though I am a meta-coach. It is a significant advantage to know if somebody can mirror back to us what we are doing and also challenge certain of our beliefs as most of those beliefs need validation.”

Future projects 

Atish wants to spread his wings further by initiating new projects. He intends to volunteer in various colleges to coach students on the importance of public speaking and develop that self-confidence. He has started a project at Friendship College Boys with the help of the rector and other educators to inculcate the skills of speaking. Currently, he is also writing his book on public speaking. “I wish to speak to maximum people in general on how to start speaking, hopefully releasing my own podcast. I wish to complete my Neuro-Semantic Trainers Training (NSTT) as well as am arching my vision to join as corporate trainer.”